About

For 18 years David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons and today is an Independent Crossbench Life Peer. He began his career as a teacher and, in 1972, while still a student, he was elected to Liverpool City Council as Britain’s youngest City Councillor. In 1979 he became the youngest member of the House of Commons and, in 1997, and when he stood down from the Commons, he was appointed a Life Peer.

1951 – Born David Patrick Paul Alton, son of Frederick and Bridget Alton. His father served in the Eighth Army, the Essex Regiment, and was a “Desert Rat,” subsequently working all his life for the Ford Motor Company. His mother was an Irish-speaking immigrant from the West of Ireland, whose own parents died in quick succession, probably of meningittis….

Curriculum Vitae:David Alton

Born:

London, UK, 1951 of British and Irish parents. Holds British and Irish citizenship.

Married to Elizabeth Bell, with four children. Resident in Lancashire, UK.

Career:

Qualified as a teacher in 1972, working in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods, teaching immigrant children and later children with special needs. While still a student, aged 21, he was elected to Liverpool City Council and became its Housing Chairman and Deputy Leader.

Elected in 1979 to the House of Commons for a Liverpool constituency, as a Liberal, becoming the youngest member and achieving a record political swing.

He was his Party’s spokesman on Home Affairs, Northern Ireland, Overseas Development and the Environment, and served as Chief Whip, Chairman of the Party’s Policy Committee and President of the National League of Young Liberals.

In 1997 he stood down from the House of Commons, and from party politics, and was nominated by the Prime Minister, Sir John Major, to the House of Lords, where he sits as an Independent Life Peer, speaking regularly on human rights and religious liberty issues. In 1997 he was appointed as Professor of Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University and established the hugely successful Roscoe Foundation for Citizenship: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/roscoe/

Publications

In 1987 he published “What Kind of Country?” – the first of eleven books. He has also authored several reports on human rights in countries such as North Korea, Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Brazil, Sudan/Darfur, Tibet and Rwanda – all of which he has visited. Details of his reports and speeches on human rights and religious liberties are available on this web site.

Among the international awards he has received are the Michael Bell Memorial Award for Initiatives for Life, the Korean Mystery of Life Award, and the Good Samaritan Advocates International Award for human rights work. In 2005 he was created a Knight Commander of the Military Order of Constantine and St. George in recognition of his work for inter-faith and ecumenical dialogue. In 2008 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory in recognition of his work for human rights and religious liberty. In 2012 he was awarded an honorary professorship by China’s Yanbian University of Science and Technology.

Human Rights Work

In 1987, with Danny Smith, he launched the human rights group, Jubilee Campaign, which led to campaigns, visits and reports on the plight of Jewish and Christian dissidents in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: http://www.jubileecampaign.co.uk/

Throughout the 1990s, and subsequently, he has continued his campaigns for human rights and the sanctity of human life. In Parliament he is Chairman of the All Party Group on North Korea, Secretary of the APG on Sudan and Vice Chairman of the APGs on Tibet, Egypt, Freedom of Thought and Belief, and the APG on Foreign Affairs. He is Treasurer of the Parliamentary Friends of CAFOD. He is a Board Member of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Public Policy http://www.religionandpolicy.org/cms/

David AltonWalking The Saints’ Way, Cornwall, 2012.Climbing Croagh Patrick 2012Tyburn Lecture 2012Overlooking Lough Mask from the site of the old Mulroe home in Tourmakeady, Mayo, West of Ireland. 2012 – Philip, Padraig, Marianne and James.

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5 thoughts on “About”

Mum said:January 9, 2012 at 4:35 pm

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
― Mother Teresa, A Simple Path: Mother Teresa

In case my background can be of use in the North Korean debates; I have visited in the last two years in a very small group and travelled across the country with and without chaperones; so have first hand experience. Consequently since then, I now speak on the living and cultural differences between North and South to after dinner groups and as a lecturer on world cruises visiting Japanese and Korean waters.